


a vast view of the blue sky

by marschallin



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Drabble Collection, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2019-10-13 17:06:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17491901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marschallin/pseuds/marschallin
Summary: A place for all my miscellaneous Enjolras/Combeferre ficlets.





	1. rainy day blues

“I am sorry, Combeferre; I know how you longed to see the new enclosure; your passion for pheasants, even uncooked ones, is admirable.” 

They stared out Combeferre’s window and watched the rain fall down in sheets, obscuring the street below. Combeferre made a choking noise in the back of his throat and turned away.

“I will not have another day off for weeks and this one will be spent puttering around my room, as if that is not what I do the rest of the time,” he said, scowling as he began setting away their breakfast things. “Please do not tease me.” 

Enjolras blinked and held out his teacup for Combeferre to take. “I did not mean to tease. We will see the pheasants soon, and until then, we will make the most of a rainy day.”

There was a crack of thunder, loud enough to make both of them jump slightly, suddenly illuminating the apartment in orange and gold before the light dissipated. Combeferre set the dirty dishes on the table and wiped his hands on his trousers. For a moment, Enjolras’s hair had seemed to glow from within, and even as the grey light of early morning returned, he retained a sort of spectral brilliance. 

“You don’t have to sit here and amuse me.”

This time, with his smirk and easy posture, Enjolras really did appear to tease. “I have been informed by a most learned physician that I am not to go out in the rain anymore.”

“Physician in training,” Combeferre corrected, though he smiled. “Speaking of which, move away from the window before the wet gets into your lungs.”

Enjolras obeyed and sat down on the unmade bed, one leg hooked under the other, back very straight. “Come. Last night you were telling me of the eastern pheasant with the turquoise face.”

There was a moment of consideration that would have seemed a contest of wills between any other men; then another thunderclap sounded and Combeferre sighed and sat next to Enjolras, setting his chin on his shoulder. Enjolras, pleased, wrapped his arm around Combeferre’s lower back. 

“I do not know if we will see it at the Jardin des Plantes but I have been long interested in _Lophura ignita_ ; the male and female members of that species are so different except for their faces, which, as you remember, are a bright blue. The males are said to make the oddest noise, almost a sort of whirling…”

They continued in that manner until the rain stopped.


	2. and then my heart stood still

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for fifi, who requested the moment one realizes he’s in love with the other

He bounds through the door with his cravat untied, his waistcoat unbuttoned, and one arm hanging out of his coat. He has, in his daydreams, planned this evening down to the minute. 

First, he will wash. He will scrub the bits of blood and tissue out from under his nails, and he will wipe the sweat from his neck, and he will not stop until he can smell only the flowery sweet soap his mother sends from Provence. Then he will change into his warmest nightshirt and he will make a pot of tisane, and he will sit in bed with a book and a hot drink until he’s too tired to see straight, and then he will fall asleep. 

It is an excellent plan; imagining those details has sustained him through a three hour lecture, two hours of rounds, a disastrous examination, and a dissection that went on so long he is vaguely surprised that it didn’t end with him as a stiff on a table. 

He has barely shut the door, barely decided which book to read or tea to brew, when he catches sight of golden hair and his stomach drops and he knows that he will not spend his evening in comfort after all. 

“The porter let me up— I have to speak to you; Jean Prouvaire has gained acceptance among the Cénacle and I am unsure of how best to leverage this connection. Surely Hugo or Lamartine could do our cause an enormous amount of good.” 

Enjolras is radiant in the darkness. Combeferre drops his coat on the battered sopha and considers his teapot, waiting for him on the table. He considers the teapot, the half-translated Thomas Young, the folded back comforter and soft mattress. 

“You look exhausted; come, sit and let me make you some coffee. Now, suppose we send Bahorel with Prouvaire, will that not inspire them to greater heights?”

There is the teapot, the book, the warm bed, and then there is Enjolras, already fussing with a satchet of coffee, grave-faced and pale. 

Combeferre sits at the table. He will, he knows, choose Enjolras every time, in every possible situation where there is a choice. He hadn’t known it before, not exactly. Perhaps it is exhaustion, but he is comforted by the strength of his own affection, his own internal steadiness. He will always choose Enjolras, when he is tired and smelling of decay, and when he is full of life and excitement, when he is alive and when he is dead. 

“Not Courfeyrac,” he says. “Give Jean a few days to further ingratiate himself and we will reconsider. What is his impression of Nodier?”

Enjolras grinds enough coffee for two cups.  



	3. spark joy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> combeferre and enjolras marie kondo their new apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @smithens, who deserves lots of fluff <3

Combining their apartments was theoretically simple. Gone would be Combeferre’s great-aunt’s old sopha, threadbare as it was. Enjolras’s bookshelves, painfully inadequate, would be repurposed for Combeferre’s anatomical samples, repulsive but necessary to his studies. Their library would be condensed and extraneous copies would be donated. Enjolras had better crockery and a fine old armoire. Combeferre had thick bedclothes and a goose-feather mattress. Between the two of them, they would make a fine home.

Then the movers were gone and they were left with boxes and boxes of gadgets, old pamphlet drafts, patched stockings, a veritable collection of pewter spoons. Fatigued from the day’s exertions and more than a little overwhelmed, Combeferre made the bed (his own; Enjolras’s remained for appearances but little else) and collapsed on top of it.

“How do we have three copies of _De Ira_ between us?” Enjolras remained unruffled and had begun to unpack their books.

“Mmmf,” said Combeferre, face down against his pillow. 

“Must we keep your lecture notes from the École Polytechnique? I suppose a student might find them useful.” 

“Mmmmmmmf,” said Combeferre. He propped himself up in his elbows and, glasses crooked, surveyed the mess. “Oh dear, we’ll never set things right, will we? I had no idea we owned so much junk.”

Enjolras nodded gravely and added the Polytechnique notes to a pile containing a mousetrap, a single black sock, and a large rock. “I admit, I am ashamed to think I have so much when I need so little. I am determined only to keep what enriches my life.” 

“That is a geode. I found it on holiday with Laigle. I keep meaning to crack it open and when I do, I am sure it will enrich my life terribly,” Combeferre said, pointing at the rock. Enjolras wordlessly moved it to a different pile which contained mostly books and a smudged oil painting of a boat. 

“This empty jar of shaving soap?” 

“I thought it would be helpful for uh, holding pins. You know, for my moths and butterflies and such.” 

This time, Enjolras seemed to smirk. Combeferre, catching his expression, held up his hands in mock desperation. “Please do not leave me when you realize that I am an inveterate slob.”

“Combeferre, dear, I saw your old rooms. I am not shocked, only… Amused by the variety of your possessions.” Enjolras held up an arm’s length of metal tubing. “And this?”

“A failed experiment, toss it.” Combeferre rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling ( _their_ ceiling!) and yawned. “I can’t decide if this pillow is sufficiently enriching. Come, test it and give me your advice.” 

Still smirking, Enjolras obliged and lay down next to Combeferre, close enough to feel his breath hot against his face. “It is quite comfortable. I say we keep it.”

“And this bedspread? The sheets?” Combeferre pressed his mouth against Enjolras’s neck and sucked, drawing out a low whine. 

Enjolras took a moment to regain his composure. “It will take some time for me to make up my mind. We ought to, pardon the pun, sleep on it.” 

And so they did.

 


	4. laundry

“Rent is due tomorrow, and a man left this here for you.” Madame Gordeaux thrust the brown-paper package at Combeferre as if it was liable to explode. Tensions had been high since July, when her favorite tenant slumped home, half-carried by his friends, covered in dirt and blood and sticky grey gunpowder. Such things were hardly forgotten; one could not go back to negotiations over coal and laundry as if nothing was changed.

Because her reasons for suspicion were so understandable and because, frankly, Combeferre had grown fond of Madame Gordeaux after several years living under her (occasionally leaky) roof, he did not mind that she treated him thus. He opened his purse and counted out twenty-three francs, then took his package with a low nod and ascended the stairs.

For some minutes the package lingered on his hall table, forgotten in the rush to set down his bag, make a pot of coffee, review his notes. The _internat_ exam was fast approaching, and Combeferre was determined to succeed. Here was an area where he might move forward though every other aspect of his life felt stalled, like a stuck watch. That was what reminded him of the package, since he had ordered some botanical texts he thought might be useful in his studies. 

He tore off the brown paper, the twine, and frowned when no book fell into his hands but a soft blue wool, familiar even now. There was a note attached:

_“I endeavor to repair what I may, and hope you will find it acceptable. Yours, Enjolras."_

And indeed, where before there had been brown and red stains, a jagged hole in the breast, now there was only neat stitching. Any observer might have guessed that the waistcoat had been altered, patched, but no one would know that it had been rescued from a body half-dead. Combeferre had not died, and knew that he had not been close to death in a medical sense, but perhaps because he had never been so close to the _possibility_ before that he still, in his head, categorized his time on the barricades as a brush with mortality, a near miss. Though he knew that it took more than a few stitches to resurrect a man, and Combeferre could not claim to be Christ or even Frankenstein’s monster. 

And yet. He had died, had nearly died, might have died. In the aftermath, he was living anew. 

He clutched his waistcoat, his dear waistcoat made clean and neat, and he wept. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt "how do e/c express their affection for one another?" 
> 
> thanks to elliot for helping me work out combeferre's rent!


End file.
